Skip to main content
Soup

Shin-of-beef Soup

A soup made with shin of beef, carrot, onion, and water, cooked slowly overnight.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Carrot and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,873 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Shin-of-beef Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Place the shin of beef, carrot, and onion in a large pot.

  2. Add enough water to cover the ingredients.

  3. Cook on low heat overnight.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Beef + carrottop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,606 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Onion + clovetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,901 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Shin of beef
Connective tissue breaks down during long gentle cooking, giving the broth body and tender meat.
Carrot
Adds natural sweetness and a mild earthy flavor to the broth.
Onion
Adds savory depth and aroma to the broth as it cooks.

The step that matters

Cook on low heat overnight. Keeping the liquid at a gentle simmer lets the beef's collagen slowly turn into gelatin. Boiling vigorously toughens the meat and makes the broth cloudy.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, carrot, onion):

  1. Celeryfits better
  2. Cuminfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, carrot, onion. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

You might also like

Indian Spiced Potato Soup with Tofu and SpinachIndian Spiced Potato Soup with Tofu and Spinach448 recipesClear Carrot and Bottle Gourd SoupClear Carrot and Bottle Gourd Soup65 recipesMock Bisque SoupMock Bisque Soup51 recipesCream of Asparagus SoupCream of Asparagus Soup42 recipes